File:Jerry Brown 92 Presidential Platform We the People.jpg

There we were, 1992...

Steven J Schmidt (SJS) | GreenPolicy360 Siterunner:

In the early days of the Brown for President campaign I referred to our upstart campaign, and the positions we put forward in our "We the People" platform, as a chance for the Democratic Party to change direction, to seriously change direction. I looked back to my work as a student and summer staffer in the U.S. Senate, and work alongside Gary Hart, as preparation for what was to come. The 1992 campaign was, in my expressed opinion, a "fork in the road". It was the third time I worked on on Jerry's presidential effort ('76, '80, then '92). It would be the last as my work on the with the Governor, a platform we called a "platform in progress", came up against intransigent politics as usual. I wrote about my meetings on behalf of the Brown campaign with the head of the Clinton campaign and the failure of the Democratic Party to accept the platform planks we put forward at the Democratic platform hearings, even as we finished a strong runner up in the primary campaign. Governor Clinton had been forced to raise additional money, bringing in this vice president nominee Al Gore, to assist him. The money raising became problematic for the DNC/DLC nexus and the message given to me and the Jerry Brown campaign was that they had no intent to push back big money and its quid pro quo inordinate influence. Jerry called it "the unholy barter", the influence peddling and its warping of the democratic fabric of consensus and decision-making.

The foreign policy positions we put forward came amid unprecedented opportunity for a post Cold War realignment, as the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union gave way to a Russian Federation. The chance for cutbacks to nuclear arms and new treaties to advance mutual security in opposition to ever present nuclear weapons use and disaster was present and our campaign seized the moment. Look at the fork in the road, in the way we presented a serious, dramatic change in priorities. Look at how we moved spending from war time, and war time failures, to spending at home on infrastructure, investments, productivity, education, and opportunity economy. The moment was there to be taken, a road to choose, but it was not to be... Although the campaign won in a number of primary state votes, and the support for our campaign's positions and policies demonstrated wide support, the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign chose a path to push back and reject the main themes of Governor Jerry Brown's campaign.

Our work to put forward the 1992 "We the People" platform, to draft, debate and attempt at the Democratic Party platform hearings to change the party's direction was to be a matter of history...

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Personal reflections of 1991/1992 campaign work with Governor Brown, shaping and presenting the campaign's platform

-- by Steve Schmidt

We called our platform a "Platform in Progress" and we presented a historic shift and political change

As the Cold War came to a sudden historic shift in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a debate over the future of conservative, liberal and progressive policy was joined. The Democratic party was at a crossroads and many looked at a future of new possibilities. Earlier work and discussions of war and peace issues with Jerry personally led me to a renewed interest in shaping future national policy. Another campaign with the Governor was set in motion.

My participation in the 1992 Governor Brown campaign for US president began with the establishment of the national office in Los Angeles.

I worked to set up issues, media, and correspondence. I had learned in a "school of hard knocks" in 1988 in Boston, while writing for the Dukakis campaign, that a 'war room' response team was necessary (even as the Clinton campaign in 1992 set up their own War Room with several of the Dukakis campaign veterans who experienced directly Atwater-Ailes type politics). The lessons learned were don't let political attacks go unattended and unanswered, Governor Dukakis refused to fight back immediately, telling staff he would 'take the high road' because the attack ads coming from the Atwater-Ailes-Bush campaign didn't deserve to be answered. So the attacks did their damage without effective, appropriate countering. This would not be the case in 1992 and so I worked to put together a "24 hour" system for response to attacks.

First came our campaign's policies on issues, taken from Governor Brown's own words in his speeches, transcribed and parsed for specific positions. We instituted a "24 hour turnaround" standard for dealing with the media and press. It was, in effect, a version of the Clinton campaign "War Room". Clarify and hit back, hit back hard against false charges and attacks.

I moved to become chair of the Brown campaign in New Mexico and focused on the national platform. Early in the campaign I proposed to draft a formal campaign platform and worked with the campaign and Governor directly to complete our platform document. Our 'out front' positions on issues ranged from the Governor's well-known calls for political reform across to a 'blue-green' agenda bringing together American workers with business in an environmental/economic agenda. With the Governor, I argued our positions and policies throughout 1991/92, in debates, and at the Democrat platform hearings and Convention...

From the Brown campaign platform to the founding US Green party platform

As a note for history and future political reference, a number of policies and positions in the Brown campaign were moved forward into the founding Green Party platform which I began drafting in 1993, having 'evolved' from the Democratic party to independent status after the 1992 Brown campaign. In 1996, the new Green platform I worked to draft served as a basis of first Green presidential campaign. Your GreenPolicy siterunner, as chair (1995-2001) of the platform committee of the newly organized national Green party, drafted the subsequent Green national platform, and many related original origin documents. The new "official" national founding platform document was formally approved in 2000, as well over a thousand attended a national Green convention in Denver. In 2001, with the new national Green Platform at the core of our legal petition, the U.S. Federal Election Commission approved the Green Party as a national committee and national political party application.

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The 1992 Presidential Campaign carries on....

More on the Jerry Brown 1992 Presidential Campaign

• https://www.c-span.org/video/?27116-1/gov-jerry-brown-1992-convention-remarks

File:Spoiling for a Fight Third-party Politics in America by Micah Sifry Routledge Publishers 2003 - published Kindle edition 2013.pdf

Brown Campaign Statement to the Democratic Party Platform Committee

1992 - Gov. Brown / Pres. Candidate addresses Dem. Platform Com't - PDF1

Gov. Brown / Pres. Candidate addresses Dem. Platform Com't - PDF2

Green Politics from the Brown Campaign Platform of 1992

Generation Green

Excerpts / Environmental Policy

Sustainable Economics-1 / Platform in Progress-1992

Sustainable Economics-2 / Platform in Progress-1992

Sustainable Economics-3 / Platform in Progress-1992

Sustainable Economics-4 / Platform in Progress-1992

Excerpts / Foreign Policy

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2019 / Memory of a 1992 Campaign

Remembering William Greider

• https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/business/media/william-greider-dead.html

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: In May 1992 William Greider's book "Who Will Tell the People" was formally published. In pre-print it had already impacted the direction of the 1992 U.S. campaign of one presidential candidate, California Governor Jerry Brown. The "We the People / Platform-in-Progress" formed a critique of Neoliberal economics and global financial services. The book was detailed, convincing and powerful. It further developed Greider's analysis of 'Reaganomics' and served as a call for a new political economy. As powerful as was the case Greider made, and the Brown campaign's 'new economics' platform continued to build upon with needed electoral and economic reform, Brown and Greider were set aside by Democrats and Republicans.

Today, as 2020 approaches, the economic landscape portends increasing corporate dominance that Greider warned of and Governor Brown continues to confront... The people have been told. Political action, real change, is the most pressing challenge of our time. William Greider, I am certain, would agreed. His warnings telling the people carry on...

Who Will Tell the people", reviewed @GoodReads

The Greider Message & the Brown Campaign

At the 1992 Platform hearings of the Democratic party, a potential turning point for the Democratic party...

A Runner-up campaign Is set aside as the Democratic party turns to Neoliberalism and corporate support

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SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner:

From a memoir published by the Green Institute including personal recollections of the 1992 Brown presidential campaign ...

Recollections of the 1992 Presidential Campaign

An Insurgent Campaign

The Democratic Leadership Council and Bill Clinton became the voice of the national Democratic Party, but not before fending off an unexpectedly strong challenge in 1992 by the Jerry Brown for President campaign. Having worked with Governor Brown earlier, I joined up with the national campaign and went about helping organize the national headquarters operations, as well as coordinating the campaign in New Mexico and assisting in Colorado. Most important to me were my efforts with Jerry to put together our campaign’s platform.

The Brown campaign began on October 21, 1991 on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Governor Brown announced an “insurgent” campaign to “Take Back America.”

I am here today to make a commitment to each of you that I intend to keep and honor: That I will work with all my energy and that I will do whatever is necessary to bring about real change.

Permalink: http://www.4president.org/speeches/jerrybrown1992announcement.htm

Although our campaign ran a strong race, and surprised critics, we finished second to the Clinton campaign.

The campaign’s message from the first speech had a steady beat – there had been “a hostile takeover” of American democracy by big money and corporate interests. We presented an historic moment, an attempt to breathe new life into America’s democratic experiment.

The announcement speech set out a political landscape we were entering: “In reality there is only one party: It’s the Incumbent Party. There are, of course, two major political organizations with different names, but at their core they are the same. They share the same worldview and they serve the power of the same private interests which, in return, finance the campaigns of both. When there are no substantial differences, there is no choice to be made. Without choices, there is no democracy and when there is no democracy there is no freedom; only a system which entertains us with illusions.”

Jerry quoted Thomas Paine from the Revolutionary pamphlet The Crisis. “These are the times that try men’s souls.” He quoted General Washington and the ‘dark hour before the dawn’ when Washington’s winter soldiers rallied when faced with imminent defeat. “I run for President because I believe America is at a crossroads… For 200 hundred years, each generation has earned the title ‘American’ by following a simple moral command: that we give our children better than we received; that we pass on a greater future with more freedom and more opportunity… If we, right now, are prepared in the spirit of our ancestors to join in common cause, putting principle before party and patriotism before profits, then we can reclaim for ourselves and our children the idea and promise of America. The hour has rung for us, we the people, to rise up and take back our democracy and our country!”

Micah Sifry wrote about the Brown campaign platform and Green platform in his book Spoiling for a Fight Third-party Politics in America.

Micah's political book is worth a read if you're in the mood for diving into the proverbial "weeds", the details of what goes into insurgent and change-directed campaigns. A few excerpts from 'Spoiling for a Fight' are here.

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"Platform in Progress"

The Brown presidential campaign's overarching goal was to construct an ongoing campaign

Steve Schmidt and Jerry Brown

GreenPolicy's siterunner w/ Gov. Brown at platform hearings in 1992

As of 2017, the campaign's 800 number still works.

In 2020, with retirement of four-term Governor Brown, the 800 number re-directed to the California Governor's office

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